


I'm always dragging that horse around

by Trojie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Healing, Enochian, Episode: s09e11 First Born, Hell Trauma, Hopeful Ending, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, M/M, Phobias, Season/Series 09, Unrequited Castiel/Dean Winchester, Unrequited Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-17 23:39:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2327354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has a horror of angels and Cas has a compulsion to heal. It doesn't help that they speak the same languages, or that Dean is elsewhere - somehow he's always between them, and somehow they still have to meet in the middle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm always dragging that horse around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Colette_Capricious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colette_Capricious/gifts).



> I forget why exactly, but this is totally Colette_Capricious's fault. The words 'SEXY ENOCHIAN HEALING SEX' may have been involved, although because this is me, it came with a whacking dollop of angst. Whoops. Also because she's awesome. 
> 
> Yes, this is yet another take on Sam-and-Cas-in-the-bunker but sorry, not sorry. 
> 
> Title from _Shake It Out_ by Florence + The Machine

Dean walks. Sam isn't even surprised. It hurts his heart, but Dean still isn't getting the point here and if he wants to go, well, Sam's too weak inside, just one big bruise, heart and soul and body, to try and force him to stay. Dean thinks he's poison, and … and Sam can see why, he's felt that way himself, but that's not the issue and Sam's so tired. He's so angry. He doesn't want Dean to hurt but he can't dredge up the right words to make him not blame himself, to make him not leave. The words he does say probably even make it worse. So Dean walks.

Fuck it, though, because at least Sam tried. Dean isn't the one who's been lied to this time around.

_'He never listens, not even to himself,'_ says Cas, behind Sam, as Dean trudges away through the drizzle and the sickly orange streetlights. He says it quietly, and Dean doesn't even flinch so he probably didn't hear it, but Sam did.

'I know,' he says turning away. The hope is always that Dean'll turn back around. The hardest part is that he doesn't, and Sam knows that even if he called out to Dean, he wouldn't. Sam isn't the one who wants to punish himself this time, so he spins on his own heel instead, and Cas is giving him the weirdest look. 'What?' he asks.

'You responded,' Cas says. He steps closer, squinting like he can see into Sam's brain. 'You … you understood what I said?'

'You weren't whispering, dude,' Sam says, shrugging. 

_'And now? Can you understand me now?'_ Cas asks. He's an arm's-reach away, less, staring into Sam's eyes in a way that makes Sam's chest tighten with memories he keeps trying and failing to pack away.

'Cas, I don't know what you're talking about.' Sam steps back. Cas doesn't - they don't touch, they never touch, not usually, not unless someone's bleeding or broken or half fucking dead, but the way Cas looks now makes Sam think of biting down on a leather belt, acrid dye in his mouth and emptiness inside him and Cas's hand searching it. 

_'Sam,'_ Cas says, staring, too close for comfort. _'Sam, I'm speaking Enochian.'_

Behind them, the Impala roars away. 

The taste in Sam's mouth now is blood.

***

_'Are you going to let me heal you further, or are you going to continue to be stubborn?'_ Cas asks in Enochian. They've established that Sam has no idea how to _speak_ the angel tongue, but it makes just as much sense to him as English when he's listening to it, and Cas has started to slip into it more and more. Sam wonders if it's something to do with getting his mojo back, if he's being just … all the angel he can be, or something. There's something weird about Cas being powered up again. Sam's not sure what, or … or even if it is Cas that's weird, if it's not just him being creeped out by anything heavenly. 

Or maybe it's just the Enochian. A hundred years of it'll get you fluent, sure enough, but Sam hasn't heard it since … then … and he's tried - _he tries_ \- so hard not to even think about that, and then it turns out he's been carrying another angel parasite for months, and now Cas is going all bilingual on him … it puts Sam's back up, makes him tenser than it should. He feels like a wire under weight, like something's thrumming in him that's going to snap soon.

This is Cas, Sam reminds himself. Cas. He's practically your brother. He's not like the rest of them. He's not Gadreel and he's sure as fuck not Lucifer. Keep it together, Winchester. But no matter who it is, Sam can't make himself happy to submit to having hands laid on. Even if it feels good. And it does, he can admit it. But he wishes it didn't. If there's one thing Sam Winchester wants it's to never get touched by a freaking angel ever again. 

'I'm busy,' Sam says, not looking up. 

'You're reading about Bigfoot sightings,' says Cas. In English this time. Maybe angels don't have a word for Bigfoot. 'But if it is very important I can heal you while you read, I suppose.' He switches back to Enochian and murmurs, _'I don't understand why you are so reluctant about this.'_

Sam can feel Cas's hand hovering over his shoulder, but he doesn't touch. He won't touch, Sam's pretty sure, until Sam's told him it's okay. And that … that's why, just like last time, like every time in the last two days, he finally leans back into Cas's hand. 'Do it,' he says, grits his teeth and closes his eyes and waits. 

It's like … like lying down in a patch of sunlight, feeling it seep in, the prickle of your skin acclimatising and it gets a little too much but it feels good at the same time. Like him and - like when he was a kid. Sprawled out on a scruffy patch of grass, shirtless from sparring practice and sweating in the heat, the vague idea of an ice cream cone somewhere in the future and beside him, within a finger's stretch - 

\- or waking up in the Impala, halfway down a nowhere piece of highway, seat like warm butter under him, and his knee's touching -

_'Remembering good times past won't summon him, you know,'_ Cas murmurs, palms curving over Sam's shoulders and the nape of his neck. _'And it doesn't negate the reasons you let him leave. Sam, this healing is as much mental, spiritual, as it is physical. Remember him,'_ Cas urges. _'Remember the good things he made you feel.'_

'You don't understand,' Sam says. 'It's - he's … he's everywhere.' Every _thing_ , but he doesn't say that. It's too much like confessing that he doesn't feel like there's any part of him that exists without Dean. Dean was there before everything else - before Gadreel, before the Trials, before losing his mind and his soul. Before Hell. Before Lucifer. Before broken Seals and desperation and Ruby's blood, and her knife, and her lies. Before the Mystery Spot, before coming back from the dead. Before Meg. Before Brady and Jess and fire and death. Even before Yellow-Eyes loomed over his crib - there are so many things Sam has to remember, but you peel all those away, dig deep enough, and there's still Dean at his core. 

What there is underneath even that, Sam doesn't know, or want to find out. Maybe there isn't anything at all. How could anyone, even Cas, ever know what that feels like?

Cas's fingers stroke up into Sam's hairline just for a moment, too familiar a caress, memories attached to that too. _'You would be surprised at how well I understand that,'_ Cas says quietly, hotly.

Sam almost laughs, because Dean never wanted any baggage, and look at them both. 

The soft pads of Cas's fingertips slide down Sam's neck, his throat, put gentle pressure at his collarbones like Cas is checking him over for injuries. The warm feeling is in Sam's joints, curling in his belly, stroking his skin under his clothes. Sam twists, the intensity of the sensation getting to him, and Cas shushes him.

It's so good, so right, for just a second, and then - 

_'Let me in, Sam,'_ Cas murmurs in Enochian, warm and comforting, gently touching Sam's temple, and it should be soothing, but it's like a physical shock. Four words, and suddenly Sam's drowning, Sam's choking, burning, freezing, frozen, and his stomach heaves and churns like he's trying to physically eject the sensation. It's a visceral horror, a sense-memory, a phobic reaction. It's everything Hell gave to him, brought to the surface all at once, by four little words. 

Four little words, and four years of work fall away.

Sam might be screaming, might be crying, but if he is he can't hear it over the rushing of blood in his ears.

A hundred years in a split second, and Cas yanks his hand back. Sam feels it leave him, feels Cas's presence in his system disappear, and all the warmth in the room and Sam's bones is gone. They're just staring at each other, Sam panting through his now-raw throat, and Cas looking like he's been punched. 

'No,' Sam grits out, barely managing to force the word between his clenched teeth. And before Cas can say anything or move or, worst of all, apologise, Sam bolts. 

He ends up in the archive room, and he's itching to destroy something but he can't do that to all this careful filing, he can't ruin something useful like that, so he paces instead, running his hands through his hair, yanking like he can pull himself into pieces. Like he isn't already in pieces. Like he isn't scattered between here and Cas's hands and Dean in the Impala, god-knows where, anywhere but here. The edges of the devil's trap on the floor of the dungeon space peek out from under the shelves. Sam shoves the doors to it open. Safe in there. Warded. Like Bobby's panic room. He takes a step into the dark, and another and another. It's empty in here now, just chains and paint, and that's what Sam wants. 

_'That warding is only proof against demons,'_ Cas says, behind him. _'The things that scare you can still get in.'_

Sam doesn't turn around. 'Story of my life,' he says bitterly. 'You gonna let me have my false sense of security, or what?'

_'You may have anything you want.'_ Cas sounds much closer now. _'All I ask is that you let me finish healing you.'_

'Why do you care?' Sam growls. He slams his hands against the back wall, curls his fingers into fists. 'It'll happen in its own time. You have better things to spend your mojo on.' He can feel Cas coming up behind him, hypervigilance letting off alarm bells, _threat, threat, threat_ and adds, snarls, 'You're not stupid enough to try and touch me right now, I know you're not.'

Cas hesitates. 'I chose my words poorly, back there,' he says, in English. Sam snorts bitterly. 'And for that, I am sorry.'

'Go away, Cas.' Sam wants to be alone, in the dark, he wants to be hurt and sick and scared and _alone_ with it. You can't trust the comfort that comes to you when you're weak, he knows that. You can't trust that it's real. 

'He is truly gone, Sam,' says Cas quietly. 'You shut him away. Metatron's spell has not released him -'

'I said _go away!'_ Sam bellows, whirling around ready to fight, except Cas has disappeared, only the sliver of light around the edge of the door left to orient Sam in the blackness. 

He's sore. His body is aching like a bad dose of flu or a long sparring session or a throw from a ghost, bone deep and shivery. He figures that's the leftovers from the Trials, whatever Gadreel and Cas couldn't burn out of him. And he's worried. He doesn't know where Dean is or what stupid, martyr's grave he's digging for himself. He doesn't know what's going on with Cas, whether this sudden levelling-up he's done will last. He doesn't know what's going on with himself, either - is this recovery or another plateau before a plunge? 

This is when, not that long ago, a wheedling voice would have come to him out of the shadows, and made promises and told nasty little truths. And he knows, he _knows_ it would all be in his head, but what the hell does that matter? What the hell does that even mean? Sam's fingers find the edge of the old scar on his palm and dig in, and he steels himself. Because Cas is right. The thing Sam's afraid of, it can still get in, might still be here, buried deep. 

Fear is something you have to face. Otherwise it'll beat you. When he was a kid Sam learned that lesson fast because Dad insisted on it the way he insisted on target practice and morning runs and smiling all nice-as-pie at police officers. And he was right, too, which is the thing that always gets Sam about Dad. His reasons were all fucking wrong but his tactics, now, they were spot-on. Dad always did have the knack of getting the wrong thing done right. 

For all he hates it, Sam knows that in some ways, he's still his father's son.

*** 

Cas is in the library, reading something old and crumbling at the spine, when Sam finds him. He looks up, startled. 'Sam? Are you -' English sounds rusty in his throat.

'I need your help,' Sam says. It's blunt. But he doesn't have a softer edge to use right now. He's rubbed-raw inside and doesn't know how to bind it up any more. 

'Anything,' Cas says immediately. He stands up, puts the book to one side. He always does this, Sam realises distantly, always puts other things aside when help's needed. Even for Sam, who nearly got the goddamn world destroyed, who's weak and wobbly and can't be trusted, always getting his buttons pushed and his bones jumped. Cas is always here for Sam, even when Sam pushes him away.

Well, Sam's got one more thing to ask. He holds Cas's gaze and unbuckles his belt, pulls it out of the loops on his jeans. 'I can trust you not to lie to me, right?' Sam asks, doubling the belt up in his fist. 'Because I need you to do something for me.'

'I won't lie,' Cas agrees. 'What do you want me to do?' The belt should clue him in, shouldn't it? Even now, Sam always gets a shiver of memory against the ragged remnants of the wall, which is still there even if everything it was supposed to keep in has got past it, when he touches his belt and remembers the bright-white pain. But so many things yank at Sam's memories. Maybe it isn't the same for Cas, or maybe he's just better at putting things away, letting them scab over.

'Touch my soul,' Sam says. 'Tell me, for sure, there's nothing in here with me - no leftovers or traces of grace or … or anything else.'

He offers Cas the belt, is ready to step back and brace himself against the big library table, but Cas doesn't take it. He just regards Sam calmly and says, 'No.'

'Cas -'

Cas looks at him. 'It serves no purpose. I have been healing you for days. I would know already if you were carrying a passenger. And if I had sensed another presence inside you, other than the remnants of Gadreel's grace, which we have dealt with, then I would have told you. _This_ only feeds your self-flagellation.'

'It would make me feel better,' Sam tries, even though he isn't looking forward to how he knows it will hurt. He just … feels like he needs it, somehow. Needs the certainty it would give him, anyway. And God help him, he still trusts Cas like this. Even with the ozone-tasting power of angel grace on him again, even though maybe Sam's lizard brain would bite through inch-thick planking to get away from anything to do with Heaven right now, it's _Cas_. 'Please.'

'No. It would make you feel worse. And I'm not even sure you would believe me.' Cas steps a little closer, like he's looking for something in Sam's face. 'Do you _want_ there to be something bad inside you?'

Sam tosses the belt down on the table, where it thunks dully. It means he doesn't have to keep eye-contact when he says, 'If something's in me … at least it means there's something to get out.'

'There's nothing but you in your body, Sam. And neither an angel nor a demon would be in your soul - even an archangel would be overwhelmed by constant contact, and a demon would be burnt up.' Cas reaches up, as if he wants to touch Sam's temple, but he hesitates, draws his hand back just before he can make contact. 'You are stronger than you know.'

Sam shudders. 'Then why do I feel like this?' he asks, trying not to whine, trying harder not to beg. 

'Because you are tired, and hurt, and you've been misused beyond belief,' Cas murmurs. 'You need rest, Sam. You need to lay down arms. How long has it been since you've _stopped?_ '

'When you and Dean were in Purgatory - '

'When Dean and I were in Purgatory, you were running,' says Cas bluntly. 'That isn't rest.' 

Sam shrugs. He'd been as settled and as cared-for as he's ever really been, those months. The mess in his head was beside the point, wasn't it? If that wasn't rest then he isn't sure he remembers what resting is. 'I dunno, then. Stanford, I guess,' he says lamely. 

Cas's expression is knowing. 'I thought as much,' he says. _'What do you need, Sam?'_ Cas asks in Enochian again. _'What do you want?'_

Sam tries, he really does, but he still flinches, and Cas draws away, and internally Sam swears because that's not what he meant, not what he wanted, and he has to be better than this, stronger than this. This is fucking pathetic.

'This is stupid,' is what he says out loud, trying to temper it because he doesn't want Cas to think this is his fault somehow. 'Just … just do it. Talk … however you want to talk, and I'll deal with it.'

'I don't like causing you discomfort,' says Cas. He blinks across the table at Sam, and shrugs. 'One language is as much use as another, when we both speak both of them. I just forgot. I'm sorry, it won't happen again.'

'No. I need to deal with it,' Sam says stubbornly, digs his his thumbnail into the old scar on his palm as if that will control his stupid, jackrabbiting heart-rate. He can do this. He can. He's almost certain the hallucinations aren't gonna come back, that that part's truly gone (and, he reminds himself, it was Cas that took it away), so it's just a phobia, just a fear, and he _can_ deal with fear. He can.

Cas eyeballs him for a long moment and then says _'Oh. Desensitisation,'_ in Enochian. _'If you think it will help,'_ he adds resignedly. 

Sam pushes harder into the meat of his hand, willing himself to listen without reacting. The scar feels thick and numb, the skin around it starts to hurt and redden. He forces a deep breath, and another, and slowly realises that Cas is still talking. 

_'- hate that this brings pain to you. It's the complete opposite of what it was ever meant for. I know you have very little reason to believe this but … but we were meant to bring you God's love, hope, protection - we were warriors as guards, not as jailers - and this language was meant to convey those things to you. I cannot even begin to understand what it was like for you in the Cage, Sam, but this, this twisting of something that should be mysterious and beautiful into something that you understand and fear, this tells me a little. I am so sorry, Sam. Sorry that my brothers did this to you. Sorry that I can't help it go away -'_

'Don't,' Sam says, forcing the word out between careful, controlled breaths. 'Cas, don't.' He looks up and Cas looks at him, frozen where he was … was he pacing? His hair is messed up the way it used to be, like he's been pulling at it. 'This isn't your fault.'

_'It feels like it,'_ Cas says. _'See? Every single word I say makes your body react, and I know that you are still in pain from the effects of the Trials, and I know that you would rather suffer than be touched, and I want more than anything to respect your wishes, but I want to heal you. This doesn't feel like help, Sam. It feels like torture, for both of us.'_

'Then stop,' Sam says, feeling sick. 'I didn't ask because I wanted to … to _punish_ you, Cas, jeez. It's my freaking problem, I just want to fix it. But … it's working,' he says, because it is, because he's not panicking, he's not running, and that's something, right?

_'You're bleeding,'_ Cas points out stonily.

Sam looks down in surprise and yeah, okay, he's dug his thumbnail hard enough under that thin ropy scar on his palm that he's actually managed to cut himself open. He stares at it blankly for a moment. It stings, feels familiar, like a defense. Stone number one, says Dean in the back of his head. But that wasn't the pain. That was … that was Dean, it was contact, it was someone telling him he wasn't a waste of space and time. It was someone else's voice overriding the ones in his head. 

Right now he doesn't have Dean. Dean's in the wind. And … and he knows Dean loves him but he doesn't know, any more, if Dean thinks he's anything more than a millstone or an albatross around his neck. He's afraid, not even that deep down, that Dean thinks that Sam's just a burden to bear. 

But then there's Cas. God knows why, but Cas is still here. Sam hesitates, but holds out his shaking, bleeding hand.

'I know. It hurts,' he admits. 'Please ... will you help me?'

***

Somewhere near the top of the list of Sam 's failings is the fact that he has an addictive personality. He knows himself. He latches on to things too hard. He's a binge-and-purge kind of guy, all or nothing, and he fights it hard but it's one of those Winchester traits that's hard to shake. 

Cas's hands feel so warm on Sam's body and his words make Sam shiver so cold, the contrast is almost narcotic. Sam searches every time for the sting in the tail, the wrongness, because nothing he's ever craved like this has been good for him, but if it's there he can't find it. He never has been able to, not with Cas. The healing is different this time, because Sam asked for it. They're standing in the middle of the library, safety in open space in case something goes wrong, in case Sam panics and bolts, but the room feels oddly intimate for all its size - their own the way no motel room ever could be.

Their hands are clasped, Sam's injured mitt held between both of Cas's, and Cas's eyes are fixed on Sam's like he's drinking this in, awed by it. 

'What?' Sam asks awkwardly, resisting the urge to pull away, confused by the slow burn that's easing along his muscles and threading his veins, radiating from where they touch. 'Is there something on my face?' 

Cas just smiles at him, and blinks, and leans up to fit their mouths together like it's part of the natural order of things, part of the healing. Mystical CPR maybe, Sam thinks hazily before Cas slides a hand into his hair and tugs, opens up and licks, and that's not for healing. Sam lets him in without even thinking about it. 

'Cas,' Sam breathes when they finally part. 'What -'

Cas strokes the hair off his forehead, standing so close they're touching from thighs to chest. _'I believe you think no-one could ever want to touch you unless they were forced,'_ he says. _'And I want to show you it isn't true.'_

In the back of Sam's head, Dean's twenty, kissing him on a motel bed and then pushing him away, telling him in a rough voice that they can't, it isn't right, and Sam's sixteen and he doesn't take no for an answer, just holds Dean down with his new-growth-spurt strength and says, I don't care, I want - 

Sam remembers that Dean threw him off and left, came back hours later, stinking of perfume and whiskey and guilt.

_'He wanted, too,'_ Cas says, tucking his fingers into the top of Sam's waistband where his gun would normally sit. _'Don't ever doubt that Dean loves you, or that he wants you. You are the centre of his entire universe, Sam.'_

'Doesn't feel like it,' Sam whispers guiltily, because it does, but not like that, not the way Cas is saying. Not in a good way.

Cas kisses him again before he can move, pulling Sam's mouth down to meet his own. He smooths his hands down Sam's back, up under his shirt, soothing and breathing and warm, and they're hard up against each other. 'And what about you?' Sam asks roughly, reaching for Cas's belt buckle. 'Don't try and tell me you don't know how Dean feels about you.'

_'I am just a soldier of God,'_ says Cas in a low voice, the dull bronze-bell enochian syllables ringing down Sam's skin like a physical touch, still shocky but leaving pleasure in their wake now, the addict's downfall. _'He was my mission. I - I never asked for anything else.'_

Asking isn't the same as wanting. Sam ought to know.

Sam kisses Cas again, starts to pull at his shirt, the sudden craving for touch making him junkie-desperate. It feels like a thousand years since the last time Sam felt like this - strong enough in mind and body to truly lust - but now that he's feeling that fire again he can't help the way it burns.

Cas arches against Sam's body, pulling himself taller, hooking his arms around Sam's neck as Sam tries to pull his shirt off, and they tangle themselves up but Sam manages to tear the cloth away from between them. Sam's ass hits the solid, heavy edge of the big table, a sharp shock because he didn't even realise he was moving, but it lets him hitch a knee between Cas's thighs and pull the angel half into his lap. Cas's fingers tighten in his hair, and he can't be sorry about that.

_'Feels so good,'_ Cas murmurs against Sam's mouth, pushing a messy kiss to the corner of it and another and another across Sam's jaw and down. He licks and nips, traces Sam's cheekbones with his thumbs and the shells of Sam's ears with his lips, and pulls away to get under Sam's shirt. _'You taste so good.'_

'Thought that was the one thing you missed about humanity,' Sam says, leaning back to give Cas space to work, a moan rising in his throat as shirt and undershirt go the way of all evil and Cas gets to his skin. 'Don't I just taste of molecules or - _oh, fuck_ \- something?'

Cas pulls away from Sam's nipple with one last tight, hard suck that makes Sam's entire body ripple with sensation, and smiles. _'There are molecules and molecules,'_ he says, and Jesus, his voice now - low and rough and ringing with authority, it judders down Sam's spine and makes his thighs fall open with hunger. _'And there's more to you than the sum of your parts, even on that scale.'_ He noses at the soft, stubbled skin of Sam's throat, and rumbles, _'I can taste hope, and sadness, and desire -'_

'And probably peanut butter,' Sam jokes softly, knowing he's blushing, and weirdly reminded of Dean telling Cas not to smell a corpse, the senses Cas has when he's powered-up, the otherworldly way he is, even if he's human-shaped, even if he's speaking English. If it looks like a dog and barks like a dog, the saying goes, but Cas barely feels like he even fits inside his vessel right now, brimming with grace, and the way he talks now - there's no way Sam could ever mistake him for anything but what he is. He's an angel, with his hands on Sam's hips with fingertips tucked into his waistband. He's an angel and he makes Sam's skin crawl and his mouth water. Sam wants to get touched so badly right now that it hurts.

_'And peanut butter,'_ Cas agrees. This time when they kiss it's deeper, slower, leaning back and back and running their hands across each other's skin. Sam's naked before he knows it, spread out over the library table and with Cas between his legs, hand snaking down - 

Sam's eyes roll back into his head. Cas's fingers ring his cock tightly and catch the wetness from where Sam's been leaking, smooth the way down, all the way until the edge of Cas's palm is right against the root of Sam's dick, and then up again, firmly and fucking lovingly, if that's even a way to describe getting jerked off - Cas does it like he loves it, cradles Sam's cock in his hand and cups the head when he finishes the upstroke so that the next blurt of precome, from Sam twitching helplessly, gets caught and used to keep things moving.

Sam is putty in Cas's hands, and it feels so good, but if they're doing this then _they_ are doing it, both of them. Cas's trousers are still hanging off his hips, belt loose but not fully pulled free, and even peering down awkwardly like this Sam can see how hard he is inside his underwear, how stretched and wet the cloth around him is.

_'You don't have to,'_ says Cas when Sam reaches shakily for his dick. 

'I want to,' Sam says, wriggling his fingers under the waistband.

Cas's eyes are blue the same way a ring around the moon is blue - a dark little miracle the colour of a fresh bruise, and he licks his lips and says, _'then I want you to,'_ and fuck if it doesn't sound like a last request. Sam tears away the last layers of cloth between him and the heat of Cas's skin, and pulls the angel down to him, wanting to carry that weight. 

It's raw and it's messy. Their dicks smear between their bellies and against each other because their hands are occupied - Cas's fisted in Sam's hair and Sam's around Cas's waist, clutching him close, and they kiss and kiss, lips numb and bitten-bruised. Cas tastes like blood and ozone.

When Cas comes it's a sudden tight stutter of his body, and he whimpers something in Enochian that Sam knows, from hearing it for a hundred years spat like a curse-word, is Dean's name. And Sam is wired so wrong, because that's what pushes him over too, and the name he moans is the same one in different syllables. 

Something in his heart feels more knit-together, somehow, breathing that word into Cas's mouth while he comes all over Cas's skin.

***

'You're not okay, are you,' says Sam afterwards. They're a finger's width apart on the big table, warm and wet with each other, and Sam's still a little drunk on touch and the fight-or-flight phobia rush. 'However you got your grace back, it's not … working right, right?'

_'It isn't my grace,'_ says Cas, tracing a slow pattern over Sam's tattoo with the pad of one finger. _'It will fade. It is fading.'_

'Will that make you human?'

Cas shrugs one-shouldered. _'Did being soulless make you a monster?'_

'Good question.' Sam rubs absently at Cas's naked hip, feeling the soft, scar-less grain of his skin, unblemished and clean. One of Sam's hips has four white, paper-thin lines across it - a sideswipe from a skinwalker the year his body and brain got back from Hell without the rest of him. He carries a record of all the shit he's done since then - Cas doesn't. 'What are you gonna do?' Sam asks quietly.

Cas doesn't answer. He looks down at where their bodies curl together without touching instead, and Sam knows he's seeing the space between them, and he doesn't say a word.

'Stay with us,' Sam blurts out. His fingers tighten at Cas's waist. 'Whatever happens. Stay.' 

It's so easy to say things to Cas he could never say to Dean. Maybe that's the point. Maybe that's where they always go wrong. Maybe that's how they fix this. 

_'Us?'_

'Dean'll come back.' Sam says it with certainty and tries to keep bitterness and hope both out of his voice, or it'll crack to pieces. This is such a fragile idea. 'Or we'll find him. We'll get him back. You and me, Cas, we'll get him back.'

_'But will we be able to help him?'_ Cas asks like he thinks the answer's no, but he inches closer all the same.

Sam shrugs. 'We've helped each other, haven't we? We'll figure it out.'

He doesn't know how, and he figures Cas can feel that as he tips his head up and kisses Sam again, soft and sweet, but Sam knows in his bones that the only reason there's space between his body and Cas's right now is because they're leaving it for Dean, and that's the way it should be. They can fix this.


End file.
